


Fireflies

by touchinghearts



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Mention of Child Death, Cliffhangers, Danger, Drinking, Gen, Happy Ending, Heavy Themes, Homophobic Language, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Romance, Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural Shane, Threat of Life, alternating povs, episode tags, in that there is one use of the word 'fag', semi-linear narrative, slight drunkenness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 14:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14546346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchinghearts/pseuds/touchinghearts
Summary: Ryan starts suspecting that Shane is more than human when Shane makes some damning comments. [HIATUS]





	Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. They'll be updated with each chapter posted but major themes and triggers/warnings as best as I know them have been tagged from the start. The story's told through alternating POVs, Shane's in the future and Ryan's in the past.
> 
> Written for Round 2: Spring of the Buzzfeed Challenge on Tumblr. My prompt was 'fireflies'.

“Shane,” says Ryan, in a voice choked with tears, “I’m not ready to die.”

Pain lances through Shane’s chest.

“You won’t,” he swears. “You _won’t_ , Ryan, I won’t let that happen.”

Ryan bows his head, hiding them in the space between his arms. Shane watches him with an aching throat.

“I promise,” he says, desperate.

Ryan says nothing but his crying begins again. Shane holds him tighter against his chest and closes his eyes to block out the light of the fireflies.

 

♪♪♪

 

When Ryan first reads the internet theories about Shane being a demon, he laughs his ass off.

It’s funny! Things like this always are because it’s all in good fun. He never doubts for a moment that it’s a joke. Duh, right? When Ryan first brings it up, Shane laughs just as hard.

Then he says, “Of all things, they think I’m a _demon_? Bit off the mark there, fellas, but not bad.”

Ryan won’t realise it for a long time but it’s that throwaway comment that starts it all. It’s not so much the joke itself but the wry grin Shane had worn when he said it; the way he trailed off at the end, as if the thought had caught him, before the distant look in his eyes vanished and he looked back at Ryan with wiggling eyebrows. Ryan had found it funny at the time, had ribbed him endlessly, yet the comment stays with him after that.

He’ll remember it at the oddest moments: in the middle of listening to Shane babbling about Julius Caesar being bald, when he’s washing his face in the hotel bathroom after coming back from a haunted sleepover, over a random weekend when he catches himself wondering what Shane is doing at that moment. He doesn’t know why the words remain with him but _something_ about them tug at his thoughts when he least expects it, like a riddle he doesn’t realise he needs to solve.

The first time he actively considers it, he’s in the midst of scouring the audio recordings from Bobbie Mackie’s in search of EVPs. Aside from their own chatter and the typical static, there’s not much he can definitively single out, and during his first run-through he doesn’t try too hard. He hasn’t gotten much sleep lately and he’s more tired than ever so most of his focus goes towards editing his and Shane’s banter, of which there is a _lot_.

“ _I said this at the Sallie House and I’m going to say it again_ ,” Shane’s saying in one part, and even in audio Ryan can hear the scepticism, “ _Even if there is a demon here, what makes you think it’s going to bother with you_?”

“ _It’s a fucking demon_!” Ryan’s audio self squawks. “ _It probably wants my soul_!”

“ _Oh, please, why do people always think demons wants souls? Maybe they just want you to get the hell off their real estate, pun intended_.”

“ _Are you—are you seriously trying to say a demon’s like a—a grumpy old geezer who hates kids on his lawn or something_?”

Ryan rests his chin on his palm and can’t help but smile when he hears Shane laughing in his headphones.

“ _I don’t know, man, I’m just saying—if there is one here, I don’t think it’s going to give you a second glance. Like why would it care_?”

“ _Again: because it wants my_ soul _, Shane_!”

“ _Souls are overrated_ ,” audio Shane scoffs.

“‘Souls are overrated’,” Ryan mimics to himself sarcastically, but he can’t help grinning.

God, could Shane sound like an asshole sometimes, talking about demons and souls like some kind of expert despite his disbelief in it all. Ryan moves his mouse but before he actually does anything, Shane’s voice on the audio speaks up again.

“ _Souls come from the dead, technically, and there isn’t much demons on Earth could do with that. So a human life would matter more to them_ ,” he says, and there’s a long, heavy pause, “ _Uhh…I guess that’d make more sense, right_?”

“ _I wish_ you’d _make more sense_ —”

Ryan pauses his own voice and frowns lightly. He studies the squiggly lines depicting audio on the screen as he thinks about the matter of fact tone Shane had used for that ridiculous statement, the pause before a rather obvious attempt to disown any validity in it. Ryan doesn’t agree with the statement itself but he can’t help but feel curious about how Shane could have such a frank opinion over something he patently doesn’t believe in.

 _“Of all things, they think I’m a_ demon _? Bit off the mark there, fellas, but not bad.”_

Ryan’s frown deepens. He glances over at the empty desk beside him; Shane’s gone home for the day because his brother’s in town and they’re hanging out. He’d invited Ryan along and Ryan had wanted to come but his load of work made the decision for him. Now he’s here alone, pondering over weird statements Shane had made months ago while Shane’s out bar-hopping with Scott.

 _Demons don’t take their brothers out drinking_ , Ryan tells himself.

A moment later, he shakes his head and starts packing up. He’s definitely too tired if he’s actually considering this bullshit.

The thing about Ryan, though, is that he’s not a believer by trade alone. He’s one by nature and he can’t help his inquisitive side. Even though he manages to brush the sprout of an idea aside, it never quite leaves him after that. It stays in the back of his mind and he’s tangentially aware of it when people joke about Shane being _something_ , be it a demon, or a vampire, or Bigfoot. Half the time he thinks it’s stupid because it’s _Shane_. Shane’s just a regular guy and there’s nothing supernatural about him, weird comments aside.

The other half of the time, Ryan can’t convince himself to be sure.

“Why don’t you believe in ghosts?” he asks one night, when they’re both out on a balcony of someone’s apartment, having escaped the party’s extremely rowdy beer pong tournament currently going on. Ryan would normally be all over that but he’s already pretty sloshed as it is; he doesn’t want to make tomorrow’s hangover worse.

Shane glares at him over his bottle. “Are you seriously asking me this right now?” he demands. “If you say you saw a ghost in the corner of the living room, I’m pouring this beer over your head.”

“I’m serious!” Ryan argues with a laugh. “I just wanna know.”

“Ryan, we literally have a show where I continuously spout the reasons behind why I think it’s all bullshit.”

Ryan hides his grin by taking another sip of beer. “It’s not compelling.”

“Exactly.”

“No—I mean, your reasons. They aren’t really reasons, right? You don’t believe in ghosts full stop, and that’s why you reject all the evidence we’ve gotten no matter how strong it is.” Shane scoffs but Ryan talks over him. “It’s not the other way around. I know you like to say you’re open to finding real evidence that’ll convince you, but it’s more that you’re already sure you’re right so you’ll find other reasons to excuse the evidence first.”

“Ryan,” Shane says again, a long-suffering expression on his face.

“Wait, hear me out, hear me out! I’m not trying to start anything. I’m right, aren’t I? I mean, you’ve gotta be open to the possibility of something being real before you can actually consider evidence. But you believe the evidence isn’t real because you don’t believe in ghosts in the first place. It’s not just your shtick; for you, it’s basically like you _know_ it’s not real, just like _I_ know it is. I believe in it because I’ve seen proof for myself. So what makes you _not_ believe in it?”

Shane stares at him for long enough that Ryan starts feeling awkward. He looks back, though, because it’s an honest question. He’s just curious.

“Nothing, really,” says Shane, after a minute. “I just don’t.”

Ryan frowns up at him. “C’mon,” he wheedles. “There’s gotta be a reason.”

“Why does there have to be a reason?”

“Because…because!”

Shane breaks into a laugh and as usual it sounds like it’s been surprised out of him. Ryan beams, easily buoyed by the pleasant noise. He’s always liked the way Shane’s eyes do that sweet crinkling thing even if he prefers not to think about why he likes it.

“You’re drunk, you idiot,” Shane says, clear affection in the words.

“So are you.”

“I’m not drunk enough for this conversation, I’ll tell you that much.”

“We talk about it even when we’re not drunk!”

Shane rolls his eyes at him but he’s still smiling, warm and fond and crinkly, right at Ryan.

“Well, you’re drunk,” he says. Ryan frowns again at the repetition but then Shane continues with: “I guess I don’t believe in ghosts because they don’t make sense.”

Ryan blinks at him. “What?”

“What are ghosts, really? You think they’re energy but what kind of energy? What the hell is spiritual energy even? People tend to say ghosts are souls without a body.”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, after a moment. “That’s pretty much it, right? Ghosts are the souls of people who haven’t moved on.”

It’s already past midnight but the city lights provide more than enough illumination to chase away the shadows caused by the lack of balcony ones. Shane’s eyes are dark and it’s not a trick of the light, or shadows, or anything that could be explained with science. Ryan’s heart starts racing but he doesn’t know if it’s fear.

“Why do you think there are souls that do and don’t move on?” Shane demands. “I know there’s the idea that souls can’t move on because something bad happened to the life it originally had, they got murked or something, but seriously, how does that even correspond? Why is it that only a traumatic death has you staying? I mean, if you want to talk about logic in this context, wouldn’t the people who’ve had a really good life hate to leave it the most? Those souls should be the ones who don’t want to move on. Not everybody would be okay with dying. And it’s not like everybody believes in Heaven, either. They wouldn’t think they’d be leaving behind life for a better afterlife.”

Ryan opens his mouth but finds that he’s speechless. It sounds like Shane’s actually thought about it in depth, more than he’s ever revealed on the show.

“And people get murdered every day,” Shane continues and his voice rises just a little. “If that’s the defining trait, then we should have ghosts around every corner. What about massacres, why do you only see one or two ghosts from those? Did their deaths somehow hurt more than the others? And then you’ve also got those ones who have ‘unfinished business’ or whatever. That’s a whole other thing, but it doesn’t affect all souls either. It’s not consistent. What exactly keeps them here, if it’s not the same thing? Why do people think it only applies to some souls but not all of them? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s not like we can make sense with what little we know,” Ryan says. It comes out a tad weak in the face of Shane’s unusual fervour.

“Oh, so this is part of your ‘other science’ thing? If we don’t know much, then how can you come up with theories of why there are or aren’t souls that don’t move on? It’s a pretty universal belief that souls don’t move on because of some traumatic experience, so it’s not even a theory at this point. If people think that makes sense, then can’t they explain why the same rules don’t apply across the board?”

Ryan has nothing to say to that.

“I’m just saying,” says Shane, “I don’t believe in ghosts because they don’t exist. When people die, no matter how it happens, they move on. No soul is stronger than another. You don’t get to choose willy nilly. You die and you go. That’s just how it works.”

“That…that’s just how it works?” Ryan repeats, his brow furrowing. “You make it sound so matter-of-fact, like you know it’s true.”

Shane’s gaze clashes with his for just a moment and Ryan catches a stricken look in those brown eyes before Shane immediately looks away. The bottom of Ryan’s stomach drops.

 _“Of all things, they think I’m a_ demon _? Bit off the mark there, fellas, but not bad.”_

“Sh—Shane?” Ryan says, faltering.

“It’s not an easy thing to understand,” Shane says. His voice is quiet now. “You move on, but who knows where you go, or if you go anywhere at all? I think that’s the main reason why people want to believe in ghosts. It’s less scary to think you might have a chance to linger in a place you can recognise, even if it’s not in the best situation, than to go somewhere you don’t know anything about. But I know ghosts aren’t real because even if those souls don’t know where they’re going, they have to go. There’s no avoiding that.”

Ryan watches him as his heart thunders in his chest. He wants to ask _What are you?_ but he’s not so drunk that he can’t tell how stupid of an idea it would be. Nothing Shane had just said is particularly incriminating, and they’ve both had quite a bit to drink. The alcohol could have Ryan making mountains out of molehills or has Shane’s scepticism steering his conclusions in odd directions. None of it implicates him in the mad theory Ryan’s been unable to shake for upwards of a year now.

But Ryan _knows_. He can’t say why he’s so sure; he just is. There should be no way Shane can be so certain about this ‘definitive moving on’ concept but Ryan knows the way he speaks better than anyone. He can tell, even drunk, that Shane is speaking the absolute truth. Whether it’s true is debatable but that Shane believes it isn’t. He knows _something_ and to Ryan, who believes that a realm of things exists beyond his understanding, that’s supernatural territory. _Shane_ is supernatural territory.

The question now becomes: what part of the supernatural is Shane part of?  

“You okay?” Shane asks, startling Ryan out of his thoughts.

Ryan flinches in surprise and turns to him, wide-eyed. Shane raises his eyebrows.

“Did I render you speechless?” he says dryly.

“No!” Ryan squawks. “I—I got distracted.”

“Of course you did, even though you started this conversation.” Shane shakes his head but again his smile is fond. “You ready to go back in?”

Ryan opens his mouth, ready to say yes, but he can hear the sound of people cheering drunkenly inside and on second thought, no, he isn’t ready. Sure, he’s just had the biggest revelation of his life about his best friend maybe being inhuman, but it doesn’t change anything, really. He’s equally sure that Shane is still Shane.

“No,” says Ryan. “I’m good.”

Shane’s smile softens and he nods. “It’s not bad out here,” he says as he raises his cup to his lips. “Not too cold. We can hang out a bit more until they finish that stupid game.”

“Yeah.”

Ryan watches him but this time Shane doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking out at the world beyond the balcony, the city lights making the skin of his face paler than it really is. He looks almost ethereal like that and Ryan’s heart starts racing again, this time for an entirely different reason that he’s been trying to deny for a while.

“What’s knocking ‘round that noggin’?” Shane says, turning his head. “It’s not like you to be so quiet.”

Ryan’s eyes dart away as he hides half his face with the wide lip of his solo cup. “Nothing,” he mutters. “Just wanted to enjoy the peace for a while.”

The moment the words have left his lips, a racket of car horns erupt from below them. Ryan peeks down over the balustrade with wide eyes, startled, but he draws back when he hears Shane start laughing again.

“Peace,” Shane says, “that’s one way to put it.”

Ryan grins at him. “It’s LA peace,” he says.

“Sure, I can accept that. Having a drink with a buddy with the sound of beer pong in the background and sirens echoing in the air. I’ve never been more at peace.”

Ryan laughs at that and he almost spills his beer from how hard his body shakes. Shane’s resulting grin makes his eyes crinkle again, void of the darkness of before, and the way he’s watching Ryan now is so soft. A shiver runs through Ryan under that warm gaze.

“Me, too,” he says.

Shane’s smile widens.

Ryan, who knows very little about demons or evil entities or really all that much about the supernatural, finds himself completely certain that, whatever Shane _may_ be, he can’t be a demon with a smile that pure.

He also realises he can’t mire himself in denial any longer when it comes to what he feels for Shane Madej.

 

♪♪♪

 

Shane should have sensed something was wrong the first time he catches Ryan staring off into space.

“Hey,” he says, reaching to touch his boyfriend’s arm and Ryan jerks like Shane’s slapped him. “Whoa, hey, it’s just me,” Shane says in alarm. “You—you okay?”

Ryan blinks at him and then shakes his head like he’s trying to knock something out.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m okay, sorry. Did you say something?”

Shane looks at him for a moment. “Devon’s checked us in,” he eventually says. “C’mon, let’s go drop our bags off. I’m hungry.”

Ryan seems normal after that but once the crew’s done with dinner, they’re all walking down the street back to the hotel, joking and laughing, and Shane’s startled when Ryan grabs his elbow. He turns in surprise but Ryan isn’t looking at him; instead, he’s staring avidly to the side. The sidewalks are brightly-lit and bustling with people while the roads are equally crowded, the after-dinner traffic providing a symphony of horns and revving engines. Ryan is looking at the intersection but when Shane does the same, he can’t pinpoint anything that could have caught Ryan’s eye.

“Ryan?” he says, confused.

“Do you see that?”

Shane frowns at him. He glances towards the others who have kept moving because they’re used to Shane and Ryan getting distracted with each other and falling back. They haven’t gotten more than a few feet because of the busy streets but it won’t be long before they’re out of sight for the same reason. Shane turns back to Ryan.

“See what?” he asks.

Ryan finally looks at him but it’s like he’s physically dragging his gaze from whatever had caught his attention, as if it takes actual effort for him to turn his head away. His eyes are wide in a way Shane’s only seen when Ryan’s scared. A drop of uneasiness blooms in Shane’s stomach.

“You don’t see it,” says Ryan. It’s not a question.

Shane scours the roads but no, he doesn’t see anything beyond vehicles and humans. Nothing that could elicit that expression on Ryan’s face. Concerned, he throws an arm around his boyfriend, keeping him close against his body in the middle of the moving street crowd. He wants to steer him forward, to rejoin the crew, but for some reason he’s sure Ryan won’t budge.

“What did you see?” Shane asks again.

Ryan’s gaze drifts, moving slow and seemingly without aim, but definitively back to the road. It doesn’t look like he even realises he’s doing it. Shane still doesn’t see anything noteworthy.

“Baby,” he says, even more uneasy now. “Hey, are you listening to me?”

He doesn’t know why but Ryan’s behaviour is disturbing. There doesn’t seem to be any of the fear Shane’s used to seeing when they’re prowling haunted locations and Ryan isn’t stiff or alert. It just looks like he’s lost in his own head, staring into nothing, even though Shane is talking to him. Shane grabs his shoulder and gives it a shake.

“Ryan!”

Ryan doesn’t jerk this time. He blinks slowly, gaze still fixed on something invisible if it’s anything at all, but he does turn towards Shane again.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just…I thought I saw—it’s nothing.”

Shane stares at him. “You’re acting weird,” he says. “What is it? Did you see a ghost?”

He’s not being sarcastic. There’s no such thing as ghosts but it’s not farfetched for Ryan to think he saw one or maybe something else. There are other things more real than ghosts in the world, Shane being one of them.

Ryan chews on his lip as he looks at Shane. His eyes are clear but they were before, too.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats. His voice is firmer now. “I was just seeing things.”

Ryan’s always seeing things and very few of them are actually supernatural. Shane’s made fun of him for it; this time, he doesn’t feel like laughing. But Ryan seems normal right now, no longer absent-minded, attention fixed on Shane instead of whatever had been on the road. Shane hesitates. He doesn’t know if he should drop it.

That’s when someone jostles them, hard enough that they stumble, and Shane feels Ryan grab onto the front of his jacket to stabilise them both. Shane instinctively looks over his shoulder as a heavyset man lumbers away and he catches a brief glimpse of mean eyes flashing back at them.

 _“Fags,”_ floats into his hearing, audible even over the bustle of people.

Shane’s heart sinks into his stomach and his grip on his boyfriend tightens as both anger and hurt start to whirl inside him. He stares after the stranger even though the guy’s disappeared into the crowd. It isn’t the first time a homophobe had bothered them, and this isn’t even the worse they’ve had to deal with, but it never fails to upset him each time. Gay marriage is legal and there are still people who cringe when he holds his boyfriend’s hand in public. It isn’t fair.

“Hey.”

Shane looks down. Ryan meets his gaze; his eyes are gentle and the way his hand comes up to cup Shane’s face is equally so. Shane’s startled when Ryan draws him down but he doesn’t resist.

Ryan gives him a kiss. It’s just a press of lips but it’s long and achingly sweet, with Ryan’s thumb stroking over his cheek and his other hand clutching possessively at his hip. Shane finds himself relaxing from the familiar feeling and can’t help but respond when Ryan smiles against him. The world around them fades.

“You okay?” Ryan asks softly.

“Mm.”

Ryan presses their foreheads together. Shane doesn’t buy into those descriptions in romance books, about how you could ‘see’ love in someone’s eyes or how they ‘sparkle’ with happiness, but he sees both these things in Ryan’s, in the prominent lines at the corners of Ryan’s happy eyes and the brightness of more than just the street lights. He feels warm with how obvious Ryan’s love for him is, with his own love for this man. No homophobic fucker could dampen that one bit.

They bask in it for a while but Ryan does pull away in the end. Shane can’t help but grumble and refuses to let him get far.

“People are staring,” Ryan chides him, though he’s grinning.

Shane doesn’t give a flying fuck and says as much. If people don’t like it, they’re welcome to go against his six feet four worth of exactly how little he cares for their opinion.

Ryan rises up to kiss him one more time before he falls back onto the balls of his feet and steps out of the circle of Shane’s arms. He links their fingers together before Shane can complain.

“C’mon,” he says, tugging lightly. “I bet the others think we ditched them. We should catch up.”

“Fine,” Shane says with a sigh and when Ryan starts walking, he follows like he always does.

The hate incident on the sidewalk pushes Ryan’s strange behaviour completely from Shane’s mind and it isn’t until later that night, when everyone’s gearing up for a shoot, that Shane remembers. He’s reminded because he turns to ask Ryan for help and finds him ripping his gaze away from the corner of the room. Shane raises his eyebrows but Ryan doesn’t say anything about it and doesn’t act differently, his demeanour displaying none of the odd ticks it had the last time.

Shane looks over at the empty corner that doesn’t even have a shadow to make it remarkable. Three times is maybe more than coincidence at this point. He contemplates asking for all of a second before shooting the idea down. They’ve got an episode to film so he dismisses it for now.

Ryan’s on the ball for the most part but Shane does catch him getting distracted a couple more times, his eyes drifting as if he can’t focus, which is unusual for Ryan of all people. Shane’s the one who tends to get bored while Ryan is hyper-aware of every creak and rustle. In these handful of moments, though, each one happening while they’re exploring the location, Ryan seems to lose track of himself and he’ll slow down, his gaze flickering like he’s following something in the air. The most Shane can see is dust motes.

The fourth time it happens, Mark looks up from behind the camera and gives Shane a look, which is notable coming from him. At Mark’s side, TJ has his lips pursed but he hasn’t called for a pause yet so Shane takes his cue and doesn’t say anything. Ryan snaps back to attention only a few seconds later and they resume their trek.

At one point, they trudge by a room and Shane feels a cold shiver run down his spine. He pauses to look back. It’s one room of many with no door and the darkness within is impenetrable, hiding what it looks like inside. He thinks about walking forward and letting his flashlight illuminate what the shadows cover, but when the thought crosses his mind, something inside him recoils violently. He stills, surprised at his own reaction. He stares at the doorway and wonders what on earth could be beyond it that has all his instincts, supernatural and otherwise, screaming at him.

A minute passes and Shane hears someone clearing their throat. He looks over at TJ and Mark but though the camera is facing Shane, neither of them are looking at him. Ryan stands a few steps away and he looks spooked beyond belief; both his hands hold the flashlight tight to his chest, his eyes wide and fixed on the doorway. Shane is used to seeing Ryan scared when they’re filming but considering his own reaction, something doesn’t sit right with him about this type of fear.

“Ryan?” he says, taking a step forward.

Ryan flinches and his gaze swings to Shane, expression unchanging. Shane hesitates. They’re still filming and Mark is now directing the camera at Ryan, recording everything as he’s supposed to do. TJ’s eyebrows are furrowed but otherwise he maintains silence. Shane hesitates but he knows he has to keep up with what they’re doing.

“Did you see a ghost or something?” he says.

He sees Ryan’s shoulders tremble and Ryan closes his eyes, turning his face away. He takes a deep breath before he’s facing Shane again, his expression now set into resolve.

“No,” he says. “It’s okay. I thought I saw something but—yeah, no. I’m obviously seeing things. It’s this place, man, it’s giving me the heebies.”

Shane studies him for a moment. “You’re always seeing illusions and getting the heebies,” he says, and then gestures to the doorway. “Aren’t we going in there? Do you feel anything?”

Ryan doesn’t look, keeping his eyes on Shane’s face.

“That’s just an empty room,” he says. “The caretaker didn’t say anything special about it so we don’t have to go in there. C’mon, we’ve got other places to check out.”

Their flashlights make it hard to really tell but Shane thinks Ryan’s white-knuckling his. He’s worried and he hadn’t missed the fact that Ryan hadn’t answered his second question but he doesn’t ask further; whatever spooked him, Ryan isn’t willing to talk about it on camera and Shane knows better than to push. He’ll have to wait for morning, after their sleepover in this little hellhole.

Shane doesn’t fail to notice that after this, Ryan keeps his eyes determinedly ahead when walking and doesn’t stray again.

Hours later, it’s way past midnight and they’re tucked into their sleeping bags in the middle of a living room. Shane is already more than halfway asleep and only vaguely aware of his surroundings, including his boyfriend. They don’t sleep together when they’re on camera so they’re using separate sleeping bags. Shane is used to Ryan’s inability to properly sleep during their haunted sleepovers so he hadn’t found anything unusual in the fact that the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Ryan staring fixedly at the ceiling. Through the veil of sleep encroaching his mind, he notices that he can’t hear Ryan fidgeting the way he normally does but he’s too tired to wonder why.

He doesn’t know what time it is when Ryan’s voice pokes at his awareness.

“Shane?”

It’s quiet, barely more than a whisper. Shane mumbles an approximation of acknowledgement into his sleeping bag, disgruntled to be pulled even a centimetre out of the soothing waters of slumber.

“I already looked it up and Google says there aren’t any here, but I wanted to ask you. Just to be sure.”

Ryan’s voice seems to come from a distance and Shane struggles to absorb what he’s saying. He’s so tired and he wishes Ryan would just go to sleep already.

“Mmmgh?” he manages, though he can’t say how long it took him.

“Shane,” says Ryan, “did you see what I’ve been seeing everywhere? The fireflies?”

The fog of sleep is so thick that Shane doesn’t immediately register the words. They sink into his consciousness one by one and it takes him a while to put them together until he actually understands what Ryan’s just said.

When he finally does, the sheer _horror_ that courses through him is like an ice cold bucket of water splashing all over him.

Shane surges to consciousness with a gasp as if his lungs had been utterly deprived of air and he struggles against the sleeping bag like a madman. Everything’s pitch black and he can’t even see the red blinking of the camera. He practically rips the sleeping bag apart in his haste to sit up; Ryan’s words echo in his mind and he can feel his body break out into cold sweat because no, _no_ , Ryan can’t say that, Ryan shouldn’t be seeing fireflies, not Ryan, _this can’t be happening_.

“Ryan!” Shane says, his voice cracking as he reaches out blindly in the dark.

Nothing in the world can describe the terror that envelopes him when his hand bumps against the flat surface of Ryan’s empty sleeping bag, and he realises Ryan is gone.

 

♪♪♪


End file.
